


let me grab your soul away

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, AFFC spoilers, ASOS Spoilers, Alternate Canon, Ghosts, Horror, I Don't Even Know, Multi, Red Wedding fallout, Robb Stark is not a friendly supernatural entity at all, Theon's part is probably triggering like woah, there should be a relationship gen tag for all the Stark siblings, this also probably shows that I watch too much SPN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robb Stark's ghost visited seven people. Five who wouldn't let him in, one who couldn't and one who did.</p>
<p>Or, have a nice old-fashioned 5 + 1 + 1 ghost story for Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me grab your soul away

**Author's Note:**

> So I apparently like _Wuthering Heights_ too much, and I apparently have weird ideas while listening to the Kate Bush song (from which I stole the title). Aaand this apparently happened and this seemed like the appropriate day for sharing it with the world, so there you go. I own absolutely nothing.

_The intense horror of the nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, “Let me in – let me in!”_

_\--_

_I observed my master’s window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. (…) I could not think him dead – but his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill – no blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more – he was dead and stark!_

\- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

 

5.

 

The blind girl (no one, she’s no one) doesn’t see it. The cat isn’t around, or at least not right next to her, and it’s dark in the room where she sleeps.

So she doesn’t see it. But she hears it, and she knows it’s behind the window, because she knows where the window is. She used it enough times.

_Let me in?_

She knew that voice. But not in this life. She knew it when she was someone else. But now she’s no one.

_Please? It’s Robb._

She knew a Robb once. But he’s been dead for a long time, and after she buried him all over again along with a sword that a brother she had been closer to had given her.

_Arya? Let me in. Please._

She’s not Arya anymore. Not now. She’s _not_. And who knows if she isn’t imagining it anyway? Robb Stark is as dead as Arya Stark is.

She turns her back to the window, the room still dark. She thinks she hears something rasp against the glass.

But she doesn’t even think about standing up and opening that window.

She’s no one. And she doesn’t know him anymore.

 

4.

 

There’s a knock on the hut’s window. Just one. Soft.

Rickon doesn’t turn towards it, suspicious – Osha would just get inside from the door, why knocking on the window?

_Rickon?_

That’s strange. He thinks he knows that voice, but he can’t remember who it belonged to. And no one on the island knows his real name, he’s sure of that – he doesn’t know why Osha insisted on it, but she must have had a good reason.

Who would be calling him?

He turns towards the window.

There’s a young man standing in front of it, a man dressed like a fine knight, with red hair and strange glowing blue eyes that look familiar but that Rickon can’t place, but – his fingers are leaving bloody traces on the glass, and there’s blood flowing from a gaping wound in his chest, and his neck is bleeding, too, as if someone had severed his head and put it back there, and _how does this thing know his name?_ If Rickon ever saw him, he doesn’t remember who it is at all and he never hears that man asking to be let inside.

He’s screaming loud enough to drown the sound of its voice.

When Osha comes running from the outside asking _what was that_ , he looks back up at the window.

It’s gone.

Rickon feels cold.

 

3.

 

Bran Stark never sees the shadow moving restlessly outside the cave’s entrance. Even if he had seen it, his mind would have been elsewhere, his eyes focused somewhere else (or in another when), and _it_ knows that it was too late.

Bran is lost to him. More than the others are.

 

2.

 

_Sansa?_

Alayne almost bolts from the bed. Who – who would even call her that?

No one knows. No one except Father, and he wouldn’t be… standing outside a window?

She turns to her left and she has the presence to put her hand inside her mouth and biting down on it before giving in to the temptation to scream out loud.

Waking Sweetrobin like that would be a very, very bad idea.

And gods, good gods, that’s Robb. He’s older than she remembers him (than _Sansa_ remembers him, but she isn’t Sansa anymore, she can’t be), but then again he was fourteen the last time she saw him. There was cold wind ruffling his hair as he stood at Winterfell’s gates, and now the wind outside doesn’t seem to touch them.

And he’s bleeding from – from too many pieces to count.

_Let me in?_

She stares, unable to keep her eyes away even if she wants to, oh does she want to, because that’s – she had never let herself imagine how Robb had looked like after he was slain, but she can see it now, she _can_ , and it’s not – it’s worse than she had thought.

_It’s Robb_ , she hears, and sees his lips moving, even if she isn’t sure that anyone else can hear him. Sweetrobin would have woken, indeed, if it was the case.

_Please_ , he says. _I can take you with me. Let me in?_

She understands at once what it means. For a moment it’s tempting – she’d leave this forsaken place, she’d be Sansa again, no more Sweetrobin, no more of Petyr’s touches, but –

She’d be dead.

And she doesn’t – that’s not what she wants. She’s been through too much to just give it up. With a bit more effort, with a bit more patience and with a bit more of time she might be home again, and when she is, then she could see to start moving her own pieces. She can’t.

She’d like to.

“My name is Alayne,” she mouths, and there’s disappointment in Robb’s eyes before he’s gone.

She doesn’t let it get to her. She can’t afford to.

She’s sorry for it, she really is.

 

1.

 

_Jon?_

For a moment, Jon thinks someone spoke his name. Then he decides that it was either the wind or Mormont’s raven flying outside the window or both.

_Let me in?_

Wait. That wasn’t the wind. And Jon knows that voice. He knows it, indeed. And he hasn’t heard it in years.

He turns his chair slowly towards the window.

And he’s face to face with his long-lost brother who looks a bit like a wight but who can’t be one, because wights can’t fly and Robb is outside a window of a tower, and he’s too – incorporeal to be one.

“Robb?” he whispers, barely audible.

Robb nods, his nails running down the glass, and the sound makes Jon wince.

“You’re dead,” Jon whispers inconsequently.

_Let me in?_

He can read the question on Robb’s lips, other than somehow hearing it. And gods, Jon would like to. He’d do it just to talk to Robb again, just to ask him how could he even think to hold this kind of weight over his shoulders, because he understands now. He wants to tell Robb how sorry he is that he wasn’t at his side.

But then something stops him.

It’s dread.

Because this isn’t the Robb he knew, and if Jon has to willingly invite him then it can’t mean anything good.

_Come with me,_ Robb pleads again. _Please. It’s so cold. You’re my brother._

And Jon – Jon _would_ , but he can’t. He has a responsibility, he has the Wall to care about, and he just – he can’t just let it all go because he misses his brother so much that sometimes it feels like missing a limb.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says. “I can’t. But if it’s worth something, I’m sorry I wasn’t with you.”

Robb gives him a soft nod, almost understanding, and then his nails slam against the glass and he’s gone after a long, hurtful, wailing screech.

When Jon opens his eyes again, nothing is outside the window and the glass is cracked.

 

0.

 

_Jeyne?_

She looks up, her eyes red from crying (she’s sleeping on the bed that had been theirs but that now is just hers, and now she’s surrounded by Lannisters, and her mother took the one thing Robb had left her), and she almost screams in joy.

He’s there.

Right outside the window.

Oh, there’s blood all over him, and there’s blood all over the glass, but before Jeyne knows she’s standing and she’s pressing her hands on the glass, just where his bloody fingerprints are, and she’s looking at him in the eyes again and it doesn’t matter that something’s clearly wrong with him.

Right now, nothing looks wrong with him.

“Robb?” she sobs, and his lips are curled up in that smile he used to give her (just to her), and Jeyne thinks her heart might burst with joy. “Oh gods, I missed you so much,” she says, feeling tears running down her cheeks.

_Let me in? Please?_ Robb sounds hopeful, almost, and she doesn’t care that there’s something weird in his voice, as if it’s not just coming from his mouth.

Not that she’s even pondering that question.

“Of course,” she says, “of course I will.” And then she’s raising her hand to the knob, and then Robb is looking down at her stomach and for a moment he looks worried, and she’d ask what it was when someone knocks on the door.

“My lady? Is there something wrong?”

One of those stupid, stupid guards that her mother surrounded her with. She sends Robb an apologetic look and turns towards the door.

“It’s nothing. Just a dream,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. There’s no answer.

Good.

Good, now she can –

She turns towards the window, and Robb is gone.

As she goes back on the bed and cries bitter tears against the pillow, trying not to make a sound, she doesn’t know yet that the crown hadn’t been the only thing she had left of Robb, and that her moon blood isn’t late because of all the poison her mother fed her.

 

+1

 

He wonders how long it is before dawn comes. He sits at the end of the bed, careful not to move, careful not to even breathe too loudly. He can feel Jeyne (no, her name isn’t Jeyne, it shouldn’t be Jeyne, it rhymes with pain) trembling slightly on the mattress. (At least she sleeps in the bed. Not him. Reek hasn’t slept in beds as long as he can remember – _before_ , he used to. Not anymore.)

If he thinks hard about it, he can taste bitterness on his tongue, but he tries not to. He tries not to think about anything. At least he doesn’t have to sleep with the dogs, but that’s not – maybe it’d be better. He doesn’t even try to move a muscle - if Ramsay wakes up –

He doesn’t even want to think about the option.

He’s had enough for tonight. Maybe if he had enough guts to stick his knife into his own heart, but Reek doesn’t have that kind of courage anymore if he ever had it, and if he did –

_Theon?_

No.

No, that can’t be. He’s dead. _You can’t be hearing Robb Stark. You can’t. He’s dead and gone and he’s nothing to you, Reek doesn’t even know who Robb Stark was and why would he even know, why –_

_Theon? It’s me._

Reek holds himself still as he slowly turns his head towards the window. It’s snowing, not much but it is, and he can hear a soft sound of flakes hitting the glass.

And –

_It’s me, it’s Robb._

Gods. He _is_. A pale hand against the glass, a burst of red visible in some faint light coming from the torch lit in the opposite corner of the room, bright blue eyes that shouldn’t be glowing in the dark.

But the moment he pays better attention – it’s not just that. There’s blood all over his – its clothes, a gaping open wound in his chest, a red trail coming down from his parted lips, another bright red slash cutting through his neck, and when he moves his fingers along the glass, he leaves a trail that becomes pink when snow falls against it.

_Theon? Will you let me in?_

_It knows my name_ , he thinks.

_That’s not your name. It’s not._

Reek swallows, glances at the bed and then at the window. Robb is still there, still unmoving, his lips still moving ever so slowly ( _let me in?_ ).

Reek stands up, careful not to make a sound, careful not to wince out loud when his bare soles touch the cold floor.

Jeyne is still sleeping.

Ramsay is, too.

Reek swallows and walks softly towards the window. 

Robb’s eyes aren’t glowing anymore when they’re face to face, but they’re still the same shade of blue he remembers (no, _that someone else remembers_ , it’s not him, it’s not him). His hand is still touching the glass, leaving that blood trail everywhere it touches.

His lips are pale and set in a thin line, but for a moment Reek sees them curl up in some kind of grin. But then it’s gone. He probably imagined it.

But the moment he looks at Robb closely, he _knows_.

_You’ll take me_ , he mouths – he can’t speak out loud. He can’t.

Robb’s eyes suddenly change – they’re not as cold as they were a moment ago. There’s something soft in there, something that Reek hasn’t seen directed at him in a long time.

_Let me in?_ Robb whispers again, and Reek doesn’t know how no one else is hearing that sound. It’s Robb’s voice and it’s _not_ , but it sounds so good to hear it.

And Robb’s nodding as he speaks.

The first thing he feels is relief. He’s too much of a coward to put an end to his own life, but if it’s like this, then – then it’s a mercy. It’s the same mercy he had thought he could give Jeyne, and he had hoped that Robb would just come and take his head before he learned that he couldn’t come anymore.

But then – then he realizes something else.

_You won’t take just me_ , he mouths. Robb’s eyes flicker to the left. Then down. Then up.

He shakes his head.

_The Boltons_ , Reek thinks. _The Freys_. And then he realizes that if he opens that window –

_It was my fault. If I had never left, if I had come back, if I had never even thought of taking Winterfell, then maybe he’d still be alive. If I let him in – it’s not undoing it, but it would be right. I can make up for it. Or some of it._

Except that – 

_She doesn’t deserve it_. He nods towards Jeyne. Robb shakes his head again.

_You’re going to spare her?_ He mouths again. Robb nods, once. He smiles again.

_Let me in? No one else would. Or could._

He doesn’t realize that he put his maimed left hand on the window’s knob until he sees the remaining three fingers curl around it, shaking.

_Let me in?_

What is he even thinking? This has to be a delusion, this can’t be happening, it can’t, and if Ramsay finds him like this he’ll wish to lose another finger or two, and he can’t, he _can’t_ , he –

_Theon?_

Who is he even kidding?

He should have been with Robb. His place hasn’t ever been anywhere else, and if only he had known that back then, a lot of horrible things wouldn’t have happened. He should have died with Robb. It’s only too fitting that he’d die because of him, anyway.

And whatever _this_ is, if it’s not a figment of his imagination, it _knows_.

Reek had stood up at first.

But Theon is the one who turns the knob to the right and opens the window – slowly, carefully, so that it won’t make a sound.

A bloodied, pale hand whose touch he used to know in another life covers his cheek. The fingers are so cold that they feel like ice, but it’s such a soft contact, almost like a caress, and it’s the gentlest touch he’s felt in months.

“I’m sorry,” he says out loud, because it doesn’t matter anymore if he’s silent or not. “Thank you.”

Robb’s hand is still so very gentle as it cards through what’s left of his hair.

“I know,” he answers, and it sounds like him but it doesn’t, and the other hand grabs Theon’s right in a grip that hurts, and Theon feels blood in his mouth but he thinks, _that doesn’t hurt at all_.

 

When Jeyne Poole wakes up a short while later because of the biting cold, it’s to a dead man on the other side of the bed (his eyes open and unfocused, his skin turning blue) and to another dead man in front of the window (a smile on his lips, and she can see the gaps between his teeth).

Jeyne screams.

 

Someone hears her.

 

A bit later, she has seen with her own eyes that out of everyone present at Ramsay’s wedding, only Lord Manderly, the people from White Harbor, the Umbers and the few others that hadn’t been at the Red Wedding are still alive.

Everyone else is staring up at the ceiling with dead, unfocused eyes.

Except for Roose Bolton, who has a gaping hole in his chest in the exact same position where he stroke Robb Stark.

 

Epilogue

 

_“You have to burn him,” Stoneheart croaks, and for the first time, Sansa thinks that there is something left of her mother in this thing._

_She hadn’t wanted to believe Brienne or Jaime Lannister when they told her, but she still accepted to go with them because whatever this thing was, there were lives at stake, and they had rescued her after all._

_Sansa was really tired of being Alayne, by that point._

_“Who?” she whispers, not understanding._

_“Your brother. My son,” Stoneheart says, one word first and a couple of seconds of pause between all the others, so that they don’t slur together. There’s dried blood all over her throat._

_And Sansa remembers. About what she saw and about what she heard of Ramsay Bolton’s wedding night at Winterfell. “Robb?” she asks._

_“I know what he is,” the thing that once was Catelyn Stark and whose eyes aren’t as hard as they used to be says. “His death made him that way. Burn him. All of him. Or he won’t stop.”_

_\--_

_That evening, she swallows and looks at Lannister. He’s the only one who might have an answer for her._

_“You heard her before. I need my brother’s bones.”_

_Lannister sighs. “I suppose you would need all of them.”_

_“It didn’t sound like just one would have worked.”_

_Lannister shakes his head. “Didn’t they tell you what they did to his corpse?”_

_Yes, they did, and she doesn’t need to think about it –_

_But then she sees Lannister’s point. “You mean that –”_

_“My lady, I highly doubt that they cared to keep the head. It could be anywhere. And who could recognize it by now?”_

_Oh, no._

_“Besides,” Brienne interrupts, “well. Long Jeyne from the inn told me about some rumors. From some travelers coming from the North.”_

_“What do they say?”_

_“That there are ghosts in Winterfell.”_

_“How is that any different from what we know already?”_

_Brienne shakes her head. “My lady, ghosts. As in two, not one. They say that the second one is another young man with dark hair and maimed hands who holds some kind of bow, but that’s all they’d say about it. I suppose burning only your brother’s bones wouldn’t be the end of it.”_

_Sansa doesn’t know about the maimed hands, but dark hair and a bow sounds just like someone she used to know._

_She knows that she’ll try to find those bones, but she already knows that the chances that she'll put a stop to it are dim. And while the evening air is chilly but not overtly so, she can't help it when a cold shiver runs down her spine._

End.


End file.
